6 Things Every Man Needs to Watch Out for in His Forties

Do not accept slowing down. Do not.

If you've had exposure to the sun over the years, like every human, you may start to see some of the effects: some wrinkles, some age spots, maybe a few broken blood vessels around the nose or cheeks. For some men, their 40s are the first time they might consider cosmetic treatments to improve their facial appearance, according to Dr. Matthew Avram, director of the Dermatology Laser & Cosmetic Center at Massachusetts General Hospital. "Beyond the retinoids, the other thing that guys do is laser treatments. It depends on what they want to have treated, but lasers tend to be effective and safe treatments that help improve the appearance of sun-damaged and aging skin."

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Everything should be fine.

TROUBLESHOOTING

If you experience pain, changes in your bowel habits, or bleeding, see a doctor right away.

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You work a lot. Work is competitive, no matter your line. Sometimes you work at night, after you get home, at the kitchen table. That's if you're not helping the kids with homework, or taking out the garbage, or falling asleep watching some third-rate NBA team play a second-rate NBA team, then waking up and doing it all over again. The problem here — one of the problems here — is that you're not exercising. You simply don't have the time. So you're getting a little softer, a little heavier. Well, the issue there is your heart has to work harder. Your blood pressure can go up, your cholesterol can go up, and suddenly the subtle intimations of heart disease are appearing in your chest. They may not manifest themselves for another 20 years, but they are there. Because you're not exercising.

MAINTENANCE

Exercise.

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"It's a myth that 40 is a doomsday birthday," says Dr. Vonda Wright, an orthopedic surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh. "Your muscle mass does not decrease if you consistently work out at a high level. We decrease in athletic prowess because we stop training hard. If we feel weaker, we are failing our bodies — our bodies are not failing us. I think the median age of male runners in this country is 43. They're the ones out there doing personal bests in triathlons."

MAINTENANCE

Do triathlons.

Space out and vary your activities. "If you work out like crazy on Monday, on Tuesday maybe you'll do yoga or Pilates. Do it just as intensely, but let the parts of your body you used the day before rest," says Wright.

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Even if you have no reason to think your eyes are anything less than perfect, it's generally recommended that you get your first comprehensive eye exam at age 40. "We screen for things that are asymptomatic," says Dr. Andrew Schachat, director of clinical research and chairman at the Cleveland Clinic's Cole Eye Institute. "Chief among them is glaucoma. There are also diabetic eye problems — if you have diabetes, you should have an annual eye exam. And we're screening for macular degeneration, which starts out asymptomatic. There are treatments for these things, but we need to know they're happening."

MAINTENANCE

There are some pre-glaucoma treatments, if a screening reveals that you're at risk.

The best thing you can do at this age is protect your eyes. Any time there's a danger of something flying into your eye — weed-whacking, playing racquetball, using a table saw, skeet-shooting at Camp David — wear safety goggles. If you enjoy vision, that is.

PLUS: How Blood Pressure Works

By Dr. George Kessler

Blood pressure happens for three reasons: the force of the contraction of the heart, the amount of resistance you have in the arteries (the tighter the arteries, the higher the blood pressure, the same way blowing into a balloon the first time is harder than blowing into it the third time), and the amount of fluid in the system. If the heart muscle has to beat more times a minute to achieve the same workload, the muscle gets weaker. The same way biceps do if you don't use them. Another reason we get tight arteries is that we're stressed all the time. We're on sympathetic overload — we get up to work in the morning and we don't stop till the night. Or we have too much salt. Those are the reasons that blood pressure happens. And how do we modify that? Well, exercise your heart more. Do that meditation. Meditating can reduce blood hypertension in 80 percent of the people who do it. 80 percent.

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